POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

The Brick Wall

In writing my story, I have smacked into a brick wall. I never even saw it. I was just bopping along, taking dictation from the characters who talked and acted while I wrote it all down. I was in “the zone” and everything moved smoothly. Then, POW! The wall appeared and knocked me so hard the characters temporarily lost their voices.

As I sat on the ground and looked up at the brick wall that had suddenly grown in front of me, I looked back at the steps that brought me here. Good intro/prologue, consecutive chapters that built on each other, plenty of twists and turns, and enough hints of the future to keep it interesting. And then, in the middle of an intense scene, nothingness.

Now, it’s not as if the whole thing disappeared from behind the wall. I still hear voices and I know what should happen next. So I mentally changed my visual of the problem from a brick wall to a bridge over a river, only the center of the bridge is broken. Now I can see the characters on the other side motioning for me to join them, but there’s no way to get past the gaping hole.

I take words out of my tool kit and try to fill in the missing part of the road, but the words are hollow and unstable. Still, the characters urge me to keep trying.

As a writer, I cannot leave them alone on the other side of the bridge without me for long. As a writer I will have to get to the other side, even if I have to jump over the broken part of the bridge. And, as a writer, I know I can’t wait forever to do it. So I put my hands on the keyboard—pen to the paper—and just write words.

Congratulations. You have received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle